How 180 strangers built a library together | Rebecca Toh

0:03You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. In a city known for its sleek efficiency, what happens when 180 strangers come together to build something wildly impractical? A shared library nestled in the heartlands, fueled by love of books and community.

0:25Rebecca Toh: Every shelf in our library is like a little pocket universe. an interesting, almost voyeuristic glimpse into someone's heart and mind. That's photographer and volunteer librarian Rebecca To. In this talk, she shares the gently radical story behind Singapore's community-funded library, where every one of the 180 shelves is rented and curated by a different person, from a five-year-old to a retiree, each one a small world reflecting its owner. It's entirely volunteer-run, open 12 hours a day, and started with a single Instagram post and hundreds of people who wrote back within a day who were ready to build it together.

1:06Rebecca Toh: We do have the power to come together to build what we think is missing in our lives, in our city, in our world. Rebecca walks us through this special place where time slows down on purpose, where there are no late fees, but people rush to return their books anyway. and where the simple act of building something together turned out to be its own kind of power. That's coming up right after a short break.

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3:47And now, our TED Talk of the day.

3:50Rebecca Toh: A few months ago, 180 of us came together to build something in Singapore. A library. In a city where we're lucky enough to already have a world-class, highly innovative, much-beloved public library system, of which I am a happy beneficiary. How is our library different? We are nestled in the heartlands of Singapore, where we sit between a 50-year-old furniture store and an antique shop, surrounded by birds and trees and... quite a few chickens. So our library is what we call a shed library. There are 180 shelves in our library, each of them rented and maintained by a different person. For$45 Singapore dollars a month, you get to become a bookshelf owner.

4:43Rebecca Toh: Being a bookshelf owner is actually really fun because you get to share your favorite books on your own shelf, you get to decorate your own space, and change up your books every now and then. Every shelf in our library is like a little pocket universe, an interesting, almost voyeuristic glimpse into someone's heart and mind. And if you walk around our library, quite often you end up standing in front of a shelf, thinking to yourself, I think I know this person. Even though strangely you have never met this person in your entire life. The other interesting thing about our library is that we are entirely volunteer-run.

5:24Rebecca Toh: So a roster of about 40 very kind volunteer librarians take turns to keep our library open six days a week, 12 hours a day. Some of them are bookshelf owners, They have a shelf in our library. Some of them are people from the community who really want to be part of the project. They are doctors, ex-lawyers, students, mothers, freelancers, retirees. We even have a five-year-old librarian among us. But we all have something in common. We love books, we believe in the power of books, and we enjoy being surrounded by books. So anytime we're open, anyone is welcome to come in, to sit down, to read a book for free, to make a friend or connection, to drink a cup of coffee randomly brewed by someone in the library, and to just let the stress of life melt off their shoulders.

6:20So how did we come to build a library like this?

6:25Rebecca Toh: So in April this year, I took a break from my work as a photographer, and I went to Japan for a sabbatical where I stumbled upon a small shared community library with a similar concept. I loved it. I loved it. And there was just something about the space that really enticed me. Standing in that little library in Japan, even though I couldn't read any of the Japanese books, I could sense a very powerful energy of love and care. And even though I couldn't read any of the Japanese books there, I thought it would be wonderful if we could have something like this in Singapore, right? So I decided to turn to social media.

7:08So I came back to Singapore, decided to write a simple Instagram post,

7:14Rebecca Toh: just outlining my vision of what I thought a small shared library in Singapore could look like. I thought if no one responded, then I would just forget about the whole thing. But if I could somehow get 50 people on board, I would be happy to give this very impractical, dreamy and idealistic idea a try. So I quickly finished writing, pressed pause, and then I went back to work. By the end of the first day, I had received about 300 direct messages from people who said they were seriously interested in putting money down to rent a shelf and to build a library together. I was quite emotional that night because I could really sense people's passion and fire in their messages.

7:59Rebecca Toh: Living in Singapore where life is practical and pragmatic, this felt almost like a jailbreak kind of moment. And I think a lot of people were just waiting for the right time and the right chance to do something like this together. I guess I was also really moved by the realization that so many people cared about books. So I took a leap of faith. I found a space to rent on the third day of the Instagram post. I signed the lease on the fourth day. I'm an Aquarius, so... With the help of many people, most of them strangers, we built the library in three months. So who are some of these 180 crazy people who decided to do this with me?

8:44Rebecca Toh: Raymond loves collecting CDs and books about Japan, And so these are the two things that you can find on his shelf. Every Tuesday, Raymond sets up a little stall outside our library where he sells his secondhand CDs and books. And he also brews coffee, pay as you wish, for anyone who happens to drop by. This is Wanxi and Liam, their mother and son. Elise here, Rebecca is referring to a sweet photo that just popped up on the screen behind her of a mother and a young son, smiling. The photographer is on the other side of the library window and they're both holding up pieces of paper with handwritten notes.

9:20Rebecca Toh: Liam is also the five-year-old librarian I was talking about earlier. So far we've been quite impressed by his work ethic. And their shelf is split half-half, half between Liam's favourite children's books and half between Wanshee's books. So this particular bookshelf owner, she has decided to share some of the books that used to be on the shelves of Kinsan, which is a Hong Kong bookshop that has unfortunately closed. Here, Rebecca is referring to a close-up photo of a bookshelf with a thin piece of fabric pinned to the top of the shelf that's embroidered with ideas are bulletproof. Underneath is a framed picture, a sentimental object, and a neat set of books.

10:01Rebecca Toh: She has also replicated a miniature version of the banner that used to hang in front of Ginsan that says, ideas are bulletproof. In a way, Ginsan lives on right here inside our library. This particular bookshelf owner, her name is Mira. She is a preschool teacher. In this photo, there's a decorated cardboard box that looks a bit like a mailbox with the letters post glued to the top and a slit for paper. Underneath are two thin blank notepads, clearly for people to take and write on. She believes in the power of letter writing, especially with children, which is why you can find a mailbox on her shelf.

10:42Rebecca Toh: So apart from reading the amazing selection of books on her shelf, you can also write her a letter. She has promised that she will definitely write you back. So one of the most frequent questions we get asked is, how does this library stay open? It doesn't really make economic sense. I think the simple answer is, because 180 people have decided that it is possible to come together to build a ground-up book space for the local community. And as it turns out, this is actually quite a practical solution because this means that we're able to share the rent among 180 people. And no one person has to bear the financial burden of keeping this space open.

11:28Rebecca Toh: The other question we get asked a lot is, what do you get out of doing this? Well, we definitely don't get paid in the traditional sense, in dollars and cents. But then we have been open for about four months now, and a lot of us have found the library to be one of the rare places where we feel truly at home. On most days, our library also doubles as a community centre, so apart from the usual book clubs, women sharing circles, people have also used it to host curry night, hot pot night for 40 people, and also two times a month, we run a midnight library where we open till late, or at least as late as the last person would like to stay.

12:17Rebecca Toh: I see community in every corner of our little library. I see community in the people who bring food and drinks and ideas and resources to our library that they freely share with each other. The people who rush to return their library books, even though we have no late fees. because they, I think because they can sense the love and the care that has gone into every shelf in our library and also because I think they just really want to share the books with other people, right? They want other people to have access to the books. I see community in the little children who come into our library, little kids who actually remind each other to, you know, like, please take care of the books, don't bend the pages, put the book back in the right place.

13:00Rebecca Toh: I see community in our volunteer librarians who spend a lot of time cleaning the library, cataloging books, and pouring their soul into making sure that the library is a welcoming space for everyone. And because of all this, Singapore feels a little different to me these days. These days, Singapore feels a little more generous, warm, open, kind, joyful, and trusting. In a world where people feel increasingly lonely, society feels increasingly fragmented, this little library has given us, or at least it has given me, a feeling of power. Not the kind of power that is heavy and destructive, but the kind of power that is light and regenerative.

13:50Rebecca Toh: This little library has given me renewed hope that we do have the power to come together to build what we think is missing in our lives, in our city, in our world. And sometimes the missing thing is a small, shared, community-owned library. Thank you.

14:14That was Rebecca To at TEDxSingapore in 2024. If you're curious about TED's curation, visit ted.com slash curationguidelines. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is a podcast from TED. This episode was fact-checked by the TED Research Team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Lucy Little, Emma Taubner, and Tansika Sungmarnivong. Additional support from Daniela Ballarezzo, Christopher Faze-Bogan, Valentina Bohanini, Banban Chang, Brian Green, and Lainey Lott. Learn more at podcasts.ted.com. I am Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed.

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